Saturday, December 03, 2005

Bye Bye BlackBerry? - New York Times

Bye Bye BlackBerry? - New York Times: "In March, the two companies announced that R.I.M. would pay NTP $450 million to license its patents. But that deal collapsed over final terms.
Although NTP is now asking a federal court in Virginia to block BlackBerry service to everyone in the United States except government and aid agency account holders, most analysts say that the Canadian company can, and should, still settle out of court. The estimated price tag for that, however, is now pegged at $700 million to $1.5 billion. While such a settlement is large for a patent case, R.I.M. is estimated to have at least $1.8 billion in cash.
...
'If this goes as far as an injunction, I won't feel sorry for them," Mr. Stout said. "No BlackBerry customer can say that NTP didn't offer a license. If R.I.M. turns that down, they have no one to blame but themselves for the consequences. BlackBerry users should tell R.I.M. to stop fooling around with their service and take the license.'"